Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – David Wainland

August 27, 2006

THE EARLY DAYS

David Wainland

I pulled myself up as high as I could, straining my child’s body as I balanced on the tips of my toes. The view, as much as I could see of it, was of a schoolyard surrounded by a chain-link fence. Directly below I could hear the sound of the street, cars passing, people talking and kids playing, though the lip of the windowsill prevented me form peering downward.

My toes hurt as my feet arched and I tried to negotiate a better view, but my attempts came up short. Then my mother approached, grabbed my shoulder and scolded.

“David, get away from the window. You don’t want to fall out do you?” and to my father, “Marty, we’ve got to get a window guard installed, he’s too inquisitive for his own good.”

It was April 23, 1943, my third birthday and our first day back in the Bronx. We, The Allies, were at war with Germany and Japan and my dad, an electrician, had transferred from Todd Shipyards in New Jersey to the famous Brooklyn Navy Yards. In his heart, he wanted to be with the other men his age, preparing to fight the enemy, but his security clearance and job prevented his joining up.

During the thirties, he enlisted in the army and after completing training, he served out of the famous Schofield Barracks in Hawaii and near Pearl Harbor. Private Wainland functioned as a radio operator both on land and on board troop ships. During a routine crossing of the Panama Canal, he and a fellow soldier disembarked in Panama City. There they purchased several bottles of contraband liquor, smuggled them on board, sold some and were caught. When the ship pulled into San Francisco, they found themselves with early discharges.

All of this happened two years before the Japanese attacked the islands. On that infamous morning of December 7, 1941, many of his former comrades died.

After the bombing, he tried to reenlist, but was rejected by all of the armed services. Instead, he took a job installing radar on ships. In those years, it was top-secret work, and while the high pay felt good, he experienced periods of guilt. He hated the stares from neighbors and strangers as he walked the streets, knowing that in their thoughts he must be a draft dodger. Why else would a young man in excellent physical health be out of uniform.

Because of the nature of his work, he could never speak the truth.

The move to the Brooklyn yards was a calculated one. He had more politically aligned acquaintances there than in New Jersey. It was from here, in the city, he hoped to escape his security bonds.

As for me, I had embarked on an exciting adventure. In Camden, we had lived in an attached, brick home with a small front yard, a smaller back yard and a one-car garage. Here, in The Bronx we dwelt in a three-room apartment in a six-floor building, one story above the sidewalk.

This is almost my oldest recollection, pulling myself up to stare out and over that windowsill. In 1954, we moved to Long Island and my last memory of The Bronx is from the same spot. Only then, the sill ended at my knees.

Dad finally protested long and loud enough and in the fall of 1944, he received papers exonerating and returning him to the army as a buck sergeant, He was preparing to

leave, when my mother announced that she was pregnant.

Behind my father’s back, she made a tearful journey and plea to the local draft board. She succeeded in having his reenlistment deferred until after the baby was born.

In April of ’45, Mom gave birth to my brother Jerry, and that June, the war in Europe ended. Dad never did get in. He agonized over it the rest of his life. I do not believe he ever forgave my mother.

David Wainland
david@davidwainland.com